


Quiet Processing

by Cookies_and_Chaos



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Autistic Spencer Reid, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:01:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28155771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cookies_and_Chaos/pseuds/Cookies_and_Chaos
Summary: Reid talks so much sometimes that people mistake his silence for sullenness when it's really just how he processes the world. Vaguely early/pre-canon. Written for the 12 Days of Christmas Challenge 2020, Day 9, "Nine Sullen Silences".
Kudos: 43
Collections: 12 Days of Christmas Challenge 2020





	Quiet Processing

It's never made sense to him, why people are so often telling him that he needs to talk less or be quiet or shut up, and yet the minute he's quiet for too long, they're badgering him to know why he's so sullen and withdrawn. Whether the requests for his monologues and endless spills of information and research come from a place of affection, irritation, or outright cruelty, Reid has heard them throughout his entire life. When he talked too much in class, if he talked too much at home, when he accidentally rambled on during lectures at university, or when he went off on a tangent at the BAU. So many times, so many people have stopped his stream of consciousness with words ranging from gentle to cutting.

There are times when Reid can't help his runaway trains of babbling anymore than he can help the silent contemplation that helps him process the world when he stops to take it all in. Yet, it seems no matter which he does, someone takes issue with how he copes with the world around him. Either he's talking too much or not talking enough and, apparently, both of those things mean different things to different people but no-one ever stops to ask him what they mean to him.

If they did, they might understand how all the words and information and videotape replays running through his head can get so overwhelming and loud that he needs to talk about some of it so that he doesn't get stuck on one thing for hours on end. They might understand that he needs silence to process the never-ending cycle of sensations around him. They might understand that if he didn't swing between these two states, he wouldn't be much use to anyone because he'd just end up shutting down, stuck in one place because he would have no way of sorting it all out.

But no-one's asked. Not yet.


End file.
